Updates

Phosphorescent has jogged since Monday, but today was the first day that he did not cough at all. The cough has been persistent despite the bloodwork being normal. Lupe said that he will jog Phosphorescent for another day or two then turn him around to begin galloping. Lupe said there ard a few possible courses of action. We're not going to force it to make the Breeders' Cup. We are only a four-year-old, so we hopefully will have a long career ahead of us. Here are the most likely options as Lupe sees it:

Get an allowance race written at Philadelphia toward the middle of the month and use that as a prep race for the Nearctic(G1) on October 16th at Woodbine and have normal rest between races. The Nearctic is a win and you're in (Breeders; Cup) race.

Run in the Maryland Million Turf Sprint on October 2nd at Laurel. We'd likely be a heavy favorite. We could look to wheel back on short rest in the Nearctic, but Lupe would prefer three or more weeks between races.

Run in the Woodford Stakes(G3) on October 9th at Keeneland. Even though it is not a win and you're in race, a win should be enough to get us into the turf sprint. Lupe likes that timing into the Breeders' Cup the best as we'd have four weeks after the race.

We will see how he trains in the next few weeks before firming down a spot. We would love to make it to the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint, but things will need to fall into place over the next several weeks for us to commit.
At this point, we still have numerous paths open to us, so we're going to be flexible.

The Defense Rests has arrived at Kirkwood Farm in South Carolina. We followed up with the vet who x-rayed him when he was at Stonewall and he reported that the fracture in the knee has healed very nicely. The fracture line is barely visible on the radiograph. He would like The Defense Rests to be turned out for the next three weeks just be to completely sure that the line has filled in before resuming light training.

Brave Monarch had his splint freeze fired earlier this week. Mike reports that his quarter crack has resolved itself on its own, and was less of a problem than originally thought. Brave Monarch will return to the track in about a week. He will jog for a few days before galloping. With the minor setback, we are now looking at a late October or early November debut for this colt.